The bombing of Gaza is causing the entire destruction of its built environment. Many reports reveal that damaged or destroyed heritage sites are deliberately aimed at, to the point where the destruction of Gazaʼs historic buildings is like an act of ‘urbicide’.
The above featured image is for illustration and is of the BBC News
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Palestinians inspect the rubble of the Yassin Mosque in Gaza, destroyed after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike on October 9 2023. Associated Press/Alamy Stock Photo
The destruction of Gazaʼs historic buildings is an act of ‘urbicide’
Buildings are often celebrated as symbols of history, political events and creative expression. However, the simplest, most pure function of buildings is often forgotten: the way they fulfil needs and form memories.
For years, research has shown that buildings, people’s memories and everyday life are connected elements that form our attachment to a place and create our relationships to our “homeˮ. This triangle of connection helps us identify with places and feel like we belong somewhere.
Gaza has long been cherished as a sanctuary for creative experimentation, and as a place where resilient people strive to defy the violence of colonisation. Within this landscape of destruction and occupation, the locals have always tried to hold onto the concept of home, beyond a fleeting shelter that could vanish with the next bombing campaign.
However, this continuous cycle of destruction and hopeful reconstruction has now come to an abrupt halt. Since October 7 2023, the bombardment of Gaza is reported to have damaged more than 100 historic sites and destroyed 69,700 homes.
At the time of writing, 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced. This ongoing urbicide – the destruction of cultural hubs in the built environment – also threatens that triangle connecting people to their homes, land and heritage.
With more than half of Gazaʼs buildings either damaged or destroyed, it is impossible to cover the immense changes to the lives of these Palestinians in one article. So, here are just three examples of these lost buildings, and how their destruction has affected the everyday lives of local people in Gaza.
Built on the site of a pagan temple, this fifth-century church became a mosque in AD635. With a courtyard area of 1,190m², the mosque was the second-largest in Palestine and served as a daily destination for more than 3,000 worshippers.
Situated near Palestine Square, it has played a crucial role in the everyday life of Gaza, as mosques in Middle Eastern cities foster social interactions, informal conversations and societal bonds. But this incubation of societal interactions came to an abrupt stop in December 2023, when the mosque was reduced to rubble.
Palestine Square
Palestine Square has long been the centre of everyday life in Gaza and is widely regarded as the heart of the city. It is significant due to its proximity to the Great Omari Mosque and many services, as well as the passage it provides to various markets.
Urban squares play a crucial role not only in facilitating transportation and passage but also as places that are connected to our identity, memories and how we perceive our city.
Therefore, targeting Palestine Square and completely destroying the surrounding buildings in January posed a threat to some fundamental aspects of people’s daily lives and their sense of belonging to the city.
The extent of the great destruction that affected Palestine Square “Al-Saha” in the center of Gaza City after it was bombed by the occupation army yesterday. pic.twitter.com/CdKC00YW6x
It serves as the city’s commercial centre and is home to the city hall and public library. However, on October 8 2023, the street became one of the first targets of Israeli airstrikes, abruptly ending the bustling commercial activities that so many people relied on.
Gaza’s main and only public library has been destroyed by #Israel.
Municipal authorities in Gaza accuse the Israeli army of deliberately destroying thousands of books and historical documents. pic.twitter.com/NdmcR48t6U
This street was not only a place for Palestinian families to fulfil their everyday needs, but a hub for leisure and entertainment. For years, cultural sites like Omar Al-Mukhtar Street have fostered social bonds, preserved memories, and created societal bonds through everyday life and cultural events.
Seeing past the ashes
Gaza faces a challenging and lengthy path to recovery. These destroyed buildings serve as a reminder of the lost everyday life and rich cultural heritage hidden beneath the rubble.
The scale of destruction is immense, as is the humanitarian loss and disruption to daily life patterns. All will have long-lasting effects on the city’s identity and the local community’s heritage.
While it is important to highlight the destruction of buildings, it is even more crucial to shed light on how this affects everyday life and the functioning of the city. Gaza, once a hub of creative experimentation, now lies in ruins and urgently requires humanitarian, architectural and heritage support.
In this complex landscape, aid efforts should prioritise the restoration of physical structures that facilitate everyday life. Commercial spaces, urban squares, places of worship and homes formed a network that sustained daily life in Palestine.
When the bombing finally ends, it will be crucial to uncover and restore this network to restore Palestinians’ sense of belonging to their cities – and connection with their land.
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Are smart cities really smart? That’s the Question on everybody’s mind these days. Irene Lebrusan’s wonderings are not strange to many, as felt and debated all around the world. They’re not objected to but on the contrary quite appreciated . . .
The image above is a Panoramic view of London, U.K., with modern skyscrapers in the Canary Wharf financial district.SERTS (GETTY IMAGES)
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Are smart cities really smart?
The ‘smart city’ is still a somewhat hazy concept, tasteless, almost, like a kind of half-sentence missing its verb
By Irene LEBRUSÁN
Madrid –
When concepts are repeated many times, they lose their meaning, eroding that otherwise close link between signifier and signified. When a concept is presented as the magic answer to a problem, it tends to inspire scepticism and distrust. When we offer solutions without understanding the problem, we’re probably going to be wrong.
At a time when everything has become ‘smart’ — homes, cars, phones… “even people,” as one professor sneered — smart cities sound more like a smokescreen that threatens to obscure the real problems that actual cities face. A bit like a “pyrolytic oven,” which, yes, is a catchy concept that sounds good, but you’re never quite sure what it means, even after you Google it.
Analyzing cities is complicated. Very complicated, in fact. Cities are an agglomeration of people, ideas, social interactions, businesses, economy, cars, smoke, noise, lives. Urban processes are difficult to understand, and we always, always have lingering questions and unexplained nuances, and thus, many unanswered questions as well (even if we also have a few certainties).
Moreover, cities have the great virtue of concentrating problems, so it’s not uncommon for quasi-magical solutions to proliferate, or to hear answers to questions that, in reality, we have not even managed to adequately formulate or pose. Partly for this reason, the smart city is still a somewhat hazy concept, tasteless, almost, like a kind of half-sentence missing its verb. To an extent, the smart city has become one of those empty, tautological concepts that define themselves by themselves, with reference to themselves, and so on ad infinitum (“a smart city is a city that offers intelligent solutions to its inhabitants”). Adorned, of course, with smart algorithms and smart energy-saving LED lights.
Smart cities sound futuristic, far removed from our daily lives, but always efficient (whatever that similarly hazy term, efficiency, means). Even for those of us who were not alive in 1962 and have no idea what Hanna-Barbera was, it sounds a bit like a setting from The Jetsons. A bit like the town of Springfield hailing the virtues of the monorail in The Simpsons.
Probably, part of the dissatisfaction with the concept has to do with expectations, and with a certain tendency we have, as a society, to propose solutions without having properly analyzed and diagnosed the problems they should seek to address. The smart city was supposed to be the innovative city, one that relied on information, communication technologies, and other technological means to improve people’s quality of life, the efficiency of services, and the competitiveness of societies. But it turns out we live in unlivable cities, cities dominated by traffic jams, gentrified cities, cities that expel people and lack accessible space.
The question, undoubtedly, is whether a city that discriminates or expels its inhabitants can ever be truly intelligent. How can a city that ignores the social be intelligent? Can a city that segregates be intelligent? And what about a city that discriminates or lacks physical accessibility? Then, to go a step further: Do dumb cities exist? Do stupid cities exist?
The point is that cities, in addition to accumulating their own problems, do not cease to manifest the problems of the society to which they correspond. For this reason, smart cities cannot be the magical, all-powerful solutions that will make inequality, traffic jams, pollution and your neighbor who wakes you up every night at 3 a.m. disappear. The smart city is a tool that, at best, can help us solve some of the problems that characterize today’s actually-existing cities. If they do it within a framework of efficiency and provide us with tools for evaluating solutions and problems, even better.
But, just as artificial intelligence (another big promise) has its light and dark sides, no matter how many algorithms and sensors we install, we will need to rethink what kind of society we want to live in, how we address problems, how we make cities livable, and how we develop appropriate public policy. Only then will we be able to rely on all the advanced technological tools at our disposal — to rely on computer science and, if necessary and useful, on the science of pyrolytic ovens.
Architecture exists as a substantial part of our culture whilst creating the physical environment in which people live, work, enjoy life, etc. But architecture is more than just a historically developed culture. It sadly resulted nowadays in an overbuilt “Built Environment” beside an oversaturated world of diverse artistic expressions. Meanwhile, is architecture the best art form?
The above-featured image is for illustration and is of Tripadvisor
In the Renaissance, there was a lively debate among artists and critics over which art form was the best. Cases were made for and against painting, sculpture, poetry, and music. To my mind, the debate is silly philosophically, but it is a fun and instructive exercise to compare the strengths and limitations of each art form.
So in that spirit, here is an entry in a series — the case for architecture made by a representative 17th-century character:
“Architecture embraces the other disciplines. It combines the severity of the law with the fascination of anatomy, the joy of poetry, the mystery of astronomy and the intellectual stimulus of philosophy. When you add the iron logic of mathematics, you have a profession which outstrips all others. An architect is at once an artist and a scientist. What could be nobler?”
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a worldwide green building certification program.[3] Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating systems for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of green buildings, homes, and neighborhoods, which aims to help to build owners and operators be environmentally responsible and use resources efficiently. So here are The Top 10 Countries for LEED in 2023 which demonstrates that the green building movement is truly global.
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The Top 10 Countries for LEED in 2023 demonstrate that the green building movement is truly global
USGBC recently announced the Top 10 Countries and Regions for LEED in 2023. The annual ranking highlights countries and regions outside the United States that are making significant strides in sustainable building design, construction and operations. The Top 10 report highlights the remarkable progress of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, health impacts and operating costs in buildings around the world.
Once again, China topped the list in 2023, with 1,563 LEED projects certified, encompassing more than 264 million square feet (24.5 million gross square meters). Canada ranked second with 280 projects, representing 85 million gross square feet (nearly 8 million gross square meters). India rounded out the top three with more than 77 million gross square feet (7.2 million gross square meters).
Turkey broke into the rankings in fourth place with 36 LEED-certified projects encompassing more than 31 million certified square feet (2.9 million gross square meters). Among the country’s highest-profile projects is the Okmeydani Training and Research Hospital in Istanbul.
The role of buildings in addressing climate change continues to take center stage. During COP 28 last year in Dubai, more than two dozen countries, including the United States, joined the Buildings Breakthrough. The partnership commits to the vision that resilient buildings with near-zero emissions will be the “new normal” by 2030.
Tools like LEED can help building owners and managers meet their sustainability goals and reduce their environmental impact.
The Top 10 report is used to develop the list that ranks countries based on total LEED-certified space between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2023. The U.S. is not included in the ranking, but remains the world’s largest market for LEED, with more than 556 million square feet certified in 2023.
In 2023, there were more than 6,000 LEED commercial projects worldwide.
Renewable projects are getting built faster, but there’s even more need for speed. It has all to do with trying to catch up with the agreed-upon 1.5°C that seems actually under threat of being out of reach.
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The image above is Shutterstock
Renewable projects are getting built faster – but there’s even more need for speed
How long does it take to build a solar or wind farm? It’s a simple question with wide implications. To reach our ambitious 82% renewable energy target by 2030, we have to build many new projects – and start them soon.
In 2022, renewables hit a new high of 36% of Australia’s total electricity production, double that of 2017. That’s good – but there’s a long way to go.
Hitting the national target will require building about 40 wind turbines (7 megawatts) every month, and 22,000 solar panels (500 watt) every day.
At the start of the year, climate minister Chris Bowen called on all levels of Australian government to speed up planning decisions for renewable energy projects.
Reaching our target depends on one little-researched factor: completion time.
Solar and wind projects are built much faster than large fossil-energy plants. But the pre-construction approval process can be complex and slow projects down. In new research, my colleague and I found completion times have fallen significantly in recent years. But we need to go even faster to achieve the 2030 target.
How long does it take to complete renewable energy projects?
Very few studies have explored renewable energy lead times across a group of renewable projects in Australia or elsewhere. We investigated completion times for 170 onshore wind and solar projects completed in Australia between 2000 and 2023.
Using a data set we built, we found welcome news: Australian renewable projects are being built significantly faster.
Taking an onshore wind farm from idea to reality now takes about 53 months. This is substantially faster than wind farms started before 2016, which took more than 88 months. Obtaining pre-construction approvals and planning took up most of that time.
Solar projects now take about 41 months. It used to be double that, at up to 83 months before 2011.
Overall, there has been a decrease in solar lead times. Due to recent regulatory changes, the time taken for the construction and final stages has increased from 18 months to 21 months.
What does it take to build a solar or wind farm?
We break project lead times down into three stages:
1. Pre-construction – the developer designs the project and seeks approvals
2. Building and connecting – the time between starting construction and connecting to the grid to supply energy for the first time
3. Getting commissioned – this final stage involves obtaining a performance standard from the Australian Energy Market Operator. Essentially, a new renewable plant has to be able to perform as expected and pass a series of tests. In our study, this stage starts at the time of first generation and finishes when a site generates at least 80% of its total capacity.
Why can lead times differ?
Passing through all three stages can be smooth – or fraught. While build times are improving, some projects can get stuck in development for years, making it seem harder than it is.
Delays can come from seeking approvals from multiple authorities and difficulties in accessing and connecting to the grid.
As lead times are rarely tracked across a large number of projects, outliers can skew how long we expect things take to complete. These outliers can get a lot of publicity.
Even when lead times are monitored and compared, the raw data isn’t made public. A renewable energy pipeline database should be public and provide historical examples for comparison. It could learn from the Australia and New Zealand Infrastructure Pipeline and should track and compare lead times.
How did development speed up?
It wasn’t a single policy or process change that drove these faster build times. But the improvements in lead times were driven by faster pre-construction planning and approval stages.
We found clear evidence some states are faster than others. South Australia – Australia’s top renewable state – had notably lower pre-construction lead times for both wind and solar, likely due to streamlined approvals. We found some evidence of fast approvals for solar in Victoria.
Changes in project ownership occurred often (38% of projects) but this had little impact on how long they took to complete.
One issue that has increased lead times in Australia was a 2017 change to how renewables are tested, introduced as a response to the South Australia statewide blackout of 2016. One aspect of this – the controversial “do no harm” system strength assessment – has since been removed.
These changes added an average of three months of delay for projects commencing construction after 2017.
We can go faster still
Even though Australian renewable lead times have shortened significantly since 2010, we should do more. After all, there are now only 71 months until 2030, when Australia’s renewables targets must be met.
Government approvals could be sped up if renewable developers can clearly see the steps to follow and deal with one central agency. All authorities involved should have maximum response times for key stages of the approval process.
Suitable projects located close to existing projects could also be assessed as expansions and not new developments. This would notably streamline the process. Authorities are already allowing developers to do this when approving grid-scale batteries to be installed near solar farms.
Why do we need this data?
If you’re a renewable energy developer, it’s vitally important to know how long it normally takes to get a project up and running. It’s also a key piece of data for investors and policymakers.
That’s why we have provided clear detail of our data collection technique so it can be used by researchers, consultants, and government employees. Our data set is also available for download.
Is it still possible to hit 82% renewable energy by 2030? Yes – but based on our lead-time estimates, only if most projects start their planning phase in the next couple of years.
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